fake realities

I’ve just been marveling over this little gem of insight that I wrote 4 years ago. I’ve left it entirely unchanged, except to add a single comma in a sentence that would have been extremely confusing otherwise. I basically agree with the majority of what I wrote and wish I could think still with such clarity now. Would love to get comments and discussion.

I have tried to permit myself to live in a fake reality. I create fake realities all the time. Sometimes I log-in to facebook to look at something and then log-off immediately so that no one notices that I was logged-in. I do this to appear as though I have not logged-in to facebook, to pretend that it never happened. A thing cannot have happened and not-happened. Thus I create a fake reality.

Once a fake reality has been created, it is often necessary to created several other fake realities to defend the first. For instance, if I want to appear as though I have not been online looking at facebook I must pretend that I was engaged in some other activity (I must have an alibi). I must also pretend that I am ignorant to anything I may have discovered while looking at facebook. In this way, I am obligated to create more fake realities for the sake of confirming the first.

I realize that I have always striven to appear virtuous. It has never been important whether I was actually virtuous or not, only whether or not I appeared so to other people. This can only mean that I valued the opinions of others more than I valued my self and virtuousness.

How did I come to be this way? A lifetime of learning to meet the world’s expectations… Instead of actually meeting the world’s expectations however, I have learned the short-cut of appearing to meet the world’s expectations, which is sometimes all the world expects. For example, the commandment “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” requires that a person only appear to act nice, but not that a person actually act nice. If a teacher warns you not to let her/him catch you chewing gum, it is not the act of chewing gum she has forbidden, it is the act of appearing to chew gum which she has forbidden. She expects only that you appear to be doing what she “expects” … not to catch you chewing gum. By this standard of expectations, dishonesty, deceit, and contempt for intelligence is bred.

Slowly, I have realized these facts of my existence, and slowly, I have tried to change. My purpose in changing grows clearer all the time. I realize that I must have a goal in mind before the desired changes can begin to take shape. Thus, I desire to live virtuously in the only reality which truly exists. It is necessary to first live in reality as it truly exists before one can be virtuous. Thus, and as a matter of foremost importance, I must not deceive myself or others. I must not live in a fake reality. Only after I have acknowledged reality as it truly is can I consciously seek to be virtuous.

Why ought I to be virtuous? (since Ought = “is necessary”)

Only by being virtuous can I survive in this reality. If I am not virtuous I have surely given myself to death.

Excellent post and very revealing of a great deal of people and society for thousands of years. And is directly related to why deception rules politics and Man.

To answer that requires a long discussion. My answer revolves around the concern of Self-Harmony and how it leads to both survival and inner joy. That which is virtuous leads to self-harmony, else it isn’t really virtuous.

James S Saint,

Thanks. There is one place where I disagree with myself - it’s the statement that I never cared whether I was actually virtuous or not. I was wrong, I do actually care and it’s a concern that’s present in who I am. I just don’t often care for what other people think is virtuous or for the virtues of the law which are often stale political compromises. A large part of virtue is, in my opinion, authenticity, which must have something to do with my objection to fake realities.

The teacher is offering a pact of mutual respect here, and your response is “contempt.” What you wish for is the “discipline rod,” you want the teacher to assert her authority over you, and your submission to this would be your “virtue”? Likewise, in your “reality” do you not wish for commandments to obey? So that you will know what is virtuous and what is not (according to authority).

I see what you mean. It has nothing to do with wanting commandments to obey or having the teacher to assert authority over me. Let me try to explain.

If I decide to chew gum and do it discreetly with respect to this pact between student and teacher, I basically have to chew gum while at the same time pretending I’m not chewing gum. Sure, it can be done – I’ve done it before. It’s almost an insignificant example, but still it captures what I mean about creating and encouraging fake realities. If the teacher really has no problem with students chewing gum, why should anyone have to pretend? To cover the teacher’s butt in case an administrator walks in? Well why should the teacher have to pretend in front of administration? Why doesn’t she/he stand up for what s/he believes in?

I want to live authentically. I don’t want to have to pretend or appear other than I am.

It is called courage. :-"
Good luck finding much of that walking around these days.

Because chaos would ensue (and gum is already bad enough without chaos). Suppose your other students saw you wantonly chewing gum, then they’d do the same, and everyone would be chewing gum, all over the place, and sticking it in all the other places. Nightmare. Plus, admins are beaurocratic nazis.

It’s like in parts of Asia, where everyone is polite to one another due to social hierarchy or Confucious, or something. Anyway, you could think to yourself, “they don’t really mean to be polite, they’re just pretending because they have to” but, at the end of the day, it’s better than being rude to one another!

Yeh but, the world don’t owe you truth nor you it!

Perhaps there would be chaos if everyone changed and started living this way all at once, but I don’t think there would always have to be chaos. But perhaps you are missing my point. If the teacher really believes that students will stick gum everywhere and abuse the privilege, then s/he wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) make the pact. It’s about being authentic with yourself and with other people. No matter how authentic you are internally, if you are disingenuous in your interactions with other people it will have a deeper affect on who you are as a person.

Do you want your closest friends and family to lie to you and distort the truth so as not to upset you? Or do you want them to tell it to you straight up and help you figure things out for real?

It’s not about what’s owed, it’s about what I want.

Suppose in your class 60% were good kids and 40% were bad kids, the 40 would stick their gum all over the place so the rule: No Gum has to be applied for ALL the class because of a bad 40. So, why not have a silent pact, the teacher sees you chewing gum and makes you spit it out as an example BUT you can chew gum if you do it discreetly - a silent pact. It sounds odd, but the agreement between you and the teacher is that you know the rule is BS and you can break it, but only if you do it discreetly, to do it openly is somehow more damaging. The authority is undermined and the loons take over the asylum!

The truth by people close is fine but not by strangers. Some old man is having a bad day and shoves into me whilst walking past each other, he is being authentic to himself there and then but that shit ain’t cool, we can’t have people shoving into each other, just because they’re having a bad day.

Also, what about breaking wind in the cinema? Do it and be authentic or, hold it and keep the peace? That it the question.

The deceit can be damaging as well. 40% of the class have good reason not to trust their teacher if they find out. It also reinforces the idea that you should just appear the way people expect and say what people want to hear to avoid disruption. Do you want to please and pacify people or do you want to be great?

No. I don’t think people should shove into each other if they’re having a bad day, I’m fine with the laws against it, but I also don’t think it’s the best thing to pretend that everything is fine. I would advocate self-restraint.

fuse,

Good posts

It matters not what others think is virtuous; that’s way too complex of undertaking: to take an average of what’s good. As long as you are utilizing what you know is virtuous for yourself, you will be guided by your own integrity. That is all that matters for you and there is nothing wrong with that. It’s all good. If that’s not the case, if you don’t know what is good, then you can say you don’t know what is right and you will be open to the possibility that there is something wrong with you. But there can only be something wrong with you relative to what others confer as to what it is to be right, good and virtuous for you. Any fool can go along with that, but the courage to be on your own, to stand on your two solid feet, is something which cannot be given by somebody. You cannot free yourself of that burden by trying to develop that courage. If you are freed from the burden of the past of other‘s expectations and authority (including your sentimentality towards authority figures), then what is left there is the courage.

Good post fuse, I still grapple with this personally and have to give your post credit to further my own self reflection.

Why would they not trust their teacher?

Maybe it depends on who you identifythe teacher as, within the school’s rules is the teacher an school agent i.e. the embodiment of authority, thus you don’t expect her to admit that the rules are BS which would undermine the school’s authority, or maybe she is an independant figure and has to work and survive within those rules just as the students do…“if you ain’t with us, you’re against us!”

Which is what the chewing gum discreetly would entail: self-restraint. Do it, but do it discreetly. Just as one can be in a bad mood, but with self-restraint, they would be in a bad mood discreetly! But then they go home to their wives and complain about their day, thus relieving themselves of the self-restraint and pretense.

finishedman,

Thank you, your comments are thoughtful.

As long as you are utilizing what you know is virtuous for yourself, you will be guided by your own integrity.

Perhaps I do actually care about what other people think is virtuous, and I think there is definitely a place for these observations in determining what virtue is for me, but the determining factors shall come from within.

WW_III_ANGRY

Thanks. I feel like I’ve been a zombie for a long time and this little piece, among others, that I had saved from way back when really reignited something in me. It’s like something to hold onto and build from. And I love the fact that I wrote it. I am obsessed with who I am. Is that, like, normal?

The silent pact seems tantamount to lying to/misleading 40% of the class.

No, this “discretion” is not self-restraint, it’s pretense. And while I realize this seems like a minor issue over chewing gum in school it makes an impression on people as they grow up. AS I said, it reinforces the idea that you should just appear the way people expect and say what people want to hear to avoid disruption. If you are disingenuous in your interactions with other people it will have a deeper affect on who you are as a person.

Now this is a fake reality. Or it is to me.

Take for instance the killing of Osama bin Laden. Was this a virtuous act because Barack Obama lives in reality as it really is? And are those who view it instead as a villaneous assassination wrong because they live in reality as it is not?

What is “reality as it really is” regarding any conflicting value judgments?

What can be known for certain here philosophically?

In my view, a sense of reality and a moral conviction are manifestations of particular daseins situated in particular sets of circumstances at particular points in time.

In many crucial respects, virtue and reality are just points of view.

Well, I would suppose a person may take into consideration how he fits in with his society as a means to determine one’s normalness in light of codes of conduct. After all, a normal person is good for the society in this world, isn’t he/she? For the smooth running of society, these codes are necessary. Even all our speculations about truth and reality are pretty much cultural values. But they are totally unrelated to the survival of your own unique physical and psychological contentment and well being. They are all socially, arbitrarily fixed values. Much of our tastes are cultivated tastes. Likes and dislikes are mainly cultivated; there is no such thing as an absolute normality when it comes to questioning who you are and questioning what you do before and after you do them. It’s all social.

Society’s purposes are society’s business and we are society so there’s’ no use in questioning that. We will only lose the sanity that society has so persistently maintained. Yet, society has little business in telling you what you are, your true essence. Whatever extraordinary uniqueness nature has created in you is yours alone. No declaration of society can give you that or take it away. Actually, you could be deemed as spoiled because of society.

You said the determining factors shall come from within and indeed they should. And they will because something will happen due to the energy that is in the life. That energy expresses itself and wants to break free from the encasements of mind mainly set in there by society. I’m not saying that to go along with society for certain rational reasons is wrong. What I am implying is if the values of society are arbitrary relative to what you are and if the society is not in a position to impose a Reality or Truth on you, then why should there be an obsession with or even a concern for who you are if you are not associating yourself with societal knowledge that didn’t come from you in the first place? If that knowledge did not come from you, then you are not there … the determining knowledge , the determining factor is within you ,not somewhere else. And definitely not somewhere outside that claims authority over you. You don’t have to buy 100% into a claim that has no proof or evidence to back it up.

When you free yourself from the burden of reaching out to grasp and experience that knowledge, then you will find that it is difficult to understand the reality of anything. You will find that you have no way of experiencing the reality of anything, but at least you will not be living in a world of illusions. You will accept that there is nothing, nothing that you can do to experience the reality of anything, except the reality that is imposed on us by the society. We have to accept the reality as it is imposed on us by the society because it is very essential for us to function in this world intelligently and sanely. If we don’t accept that reality, we are lost. We will end up in the loony bin. So we have to accept the reality as it is imposed on us by the culture, by society or whatever you want to call it, and at the same time understand that there is nothing that we can do to experience the reality of anything. Then you will not be in conflict with the society, and the demand to be something other than what you are will also come to an end.

I think it’s good practice to be obsessed with who you are, self reflection is an important process to progress.